


Scorch The Earth

by elowen_p



Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Background Relationships, Friendship, Gen, Multi, sorry guys but it's all my attention span can handle, the team love each other a whole lot, they're all so short and i can't believe i'm about to post something with 20 chapters and 10 words, this is just oneshots that i cross posted on tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28875543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elowen_p/pseuds/elowen_p
Summary: The fate of the world is a heavy burden for narrow shoulders. Not everyone handles it well.It's a good thing they have each other.(a series of short one-shots about the team dealing with their problems)
Relationships: Artemis Crock & Dick Grayson & Kaldur'ahm & Kon-El | Conner Kent & M'gann M'orzz & Wally West, Literally Everyone - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	1. Conner i

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!! This is gonna be a series of one shots, all in the same universe. They're all gonna be real short so don't expect a good word count on this.
> 
> No update schedule, I'm just writing stuff for this when Inspired.
> 
> (i'm aware that all that made it sound like this is going to be shit but like,,, it will be so at least i'm honest)

Once Lex drops the whole ‘I am your father’ bombshell Conner expects him to leave. He expects Lex to slither back into whatever hole he came from and leave Conner alone with an army of new demons to torment him.

He doesn’t.

Instead he starts to visit.

He texts Conner and asks if he would like to go to a diner after school. He calls Conner to ask how his day’s going. He smiles when Conner tells him that he taught Wolf a new trick.

If Conner didn’t know better, he might think that Lex was trying to parent him.

He assumes that Cadmus must have gotten something wrong. He must have misunderstood what it meant when the genomorphs said ‘parents look out for you and give you advice and forgive you when you yell at them’. Because if he didn’t then-

Then Lex Luthor would be a significantly better dad than Superman. Which wouldn’t make sense. At all.

~

After about a month of visits and kind words and pats on the shoulder that make Conner feel embarrassed but so full of happiness he might burst, he decides to confess to the team. Partly because he hates lying to them more than anything in the world. Partly because he  _ knows  _ this is wrong and he  _ knows  _ that he has to stop, but the only way that’s going to happen is if someone tells him that he has to.

So he confesses. And very pointedly doesn’t look at anyone as he waits for them to start yelling.

“But-” Artemis starts, soft in a way Conner has never associated with her before, “but you’ve been happier.”

He finally looks up and instead of angry they just look sad and understanding and Conner loves all of them  _ so much _ .

“Conner,” Kaldur says, calm and measured, “If Lex Luthor is your father, and you want to get to know him, I don’t think that any of us would feel comfortable taking that away from you.”

Wally steps forward like he wants to reach out. “We all have adults we can talk to about all of this, it’s not fair that you don’t. We won’t tell on you man.”

Conner squeezes his eyes shut because if he keeps looking at all their earnest faces he might start crying.

“I’d never-” he struggles to get the words out, “I’d  _ never  _ choose him over any of you. I like him and sometimes he feels important to me in a weird way. But he’s  _ nothing  _ compared to you guys.”

“We know.” M’gann says.

‘We know’, they all say with their trust and their kindness and all the ways they’ve tried to make him feel at home since the start.

Before he can leave to calm down somewhere with fewer people and more things to break he’s swamped by a tangle of limbs and reassurance and forgets why he wanted to leave anyway.

Sure, Lex might be something, but  _ this _ is family.


	2. Zatanna i

When is a person not a person?

It’s a question that plagues Zatanna. Or, maybe not even that. When does a person become a _different_ person? When does the helmet on your head twist and twist you into someone new and old and _different_ who doesn’t have a daughter at all.

Zatanna wonders if the word orphan applies to her. She wonders if she’ll ever figure it out.

“I don’t know.” Robin says when she asks, because during one of their chats he let slip that he really is an orphan. Two whole parents buried in their graves, no waking up. The whole shebang.

“I want to know.” She answers. It feels like a big question, the kind you need someone to answer before you can move on and do anything with your life. “I want things to start making sense.”

The word orphan makes sense. She even looked it up in a dictionary, all very clear cut.

“Whatever the answer is, you have family.” He smiles and Zatanna thinks about how sweet he is.

“Wally’s a lucky guy.” she says, half because she wants the conversation to turn a little less serious, half because it’s the truth. Robin turns a bit red and Zatanna absent mindedly starts thinking about what colour bridesmaid dress she would like.

“Shut up.” he groans, before turning serious again. “I don’t know what the right thing to say is, Z, but you’ve got to know that you’re one of us.”

Zatanna’s heart breaks a little even as she smiles. She does love the team, really she does. They’re bright and clever and beautiful and kind and she _does_ love them. It’s just that before she didn’t only belong with them. She had two places. She had a room in the mountain and a place by her father’s side.

It had made her feel whole, the duality of it all.

Maybe that’s why she packs a bag the next morning and conjures up a way to escape.

Every day with the team her soul shatters again. Every time she sees her father’s body, reduced to a vessel for a being that isn’t even _kind_ , her heart breaks in two. Staying so close to reminders of all the things she’s lost isn’t doing her any good so she decides to leave.

 _Where’s the line between running away and escaping?_ she thinks, and finally there’s a question she doesn’t want the answer to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whole situation between Zatanna and her dad is so fucked I love it.


	3. Kaldur i

Contrary to popular opinion, Kaldur doesn’t actually like Aquaman.

He loves him, but he loves him the way you love your country. The way you love someone for what they represent instead of who they are. Kaldur is a patriot down to his bones and like any good patriot he loves his king, but he does not _like_ him.

Arthur Curry does not treat his station with the respect it deserves. He does not act with the dignity a king should. It irritates Kaldur. The fact the he has more respect for his country’s monarchy than one of the actual monarchs.

Queen Mera seems to understand. She notices a twitch in Kaldur’s jaw that no one else ever has when Aquaman makes a comment about popping up to the surface. About leaving his home with reduced protection for no other reason than that he’s bored.

“It’s not as straight forward as you think, child.” she reprimands gently.

“Of course, my queen.”

She leans back, looking at him like she knows he doesn’t believe her. She’s gracious in it though, as royalty should be, and Kaldur feels compelled to make sure she understands what his irritation does and does not mean.

“My opinions do not change the fact that I would die for him. You know that, yes?”

“Of course.” she says, and this time she looks at him like she does believe him.

It settles something in Kaldur, for the queen to see where he stands and not scorch the earth beneath his feet.

Aquaman calls something back to them. Something silly and flippant like half the things he says and Kaldur is reassured that for once he isn’t the only one to sigh in exasperation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have quite literally no concept of Aquaman so sorry if he's ooc I just made up his personality. I got a vibe that he was kind of casual from YJ though and I figured that since Kaldur's so mature it might get on his nerves for his king not to take things just as seriously as he does.
> 
> Also, fun fact, I wrote this one right before making this fic so the title comes from that sentence about Mera near the end of this chapter cause I liked it so much.


	4. Wally i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: this has passively suicidal thoughts in it. It's brief and non-descriptive but it's there so feel free to skip this one.

Sometimes Wally thinks about how he’s the only one who chose this.

Not that the others didn’t want to be superheroes. All of them craved it. All of them saw the opportunity and grabbed a hold of it so tight it cut into their hands.

But he’s the only one who truly _chose_ it. He wasn’t born with his powers. He didn’t get them by accident. He made the active decision to give himself abilities, aware that there was a strong chance he would die in the process.

_Shit, does Canary know about that part?_ Huh. Maybe that’s why she keeps trying to get him in for a session.

Wally wonders if anyone else made the same choice as him, outside of the Team. He’s pretty sure that not even anyone in the Justice league had gone about things quite as purposefully as he had. Actually, no, maybe Batman.

_But he did it for the right reasons._

Because there’s no chance that Batman didn’t became a hero to make the world a better place. Because Batman must have seen the depravity and corruption and _fear_ sunk deep in the cracks of Gotham and thought, _No. I can fix this._

Wally did not become a superhero for the right reasons. Wally became a superhero because he was bored.

That’s not quite it though. Yes, he was bored, but it was the emptiness that really set him on the path he’s on now. It was the static in his veins. It was the way everyone was so slow. It was the days where he thought faster than anyone else in the room and people thought that was a bad thing. That was, if they thought about it at all.

The world moved too slowly for Wally, so he just found a way to speed things up.

Sometimes it eats at him. Just a little. The thought that he was so selfish when he gave himself his powers. The guilt never stays long though, it’s always overpowered by the ocean of relief at how he gets to live this new life he’s forged for himself.

This new life where his brain goes fast but Uncle Barry is even faster. This new life that’s so full of danger and meaning that he hardly ever remembers to be bored. This new life with the Team.

_God_ he loves them.

They’re so wonderful it makes him breathless sometimes. They’re clever and kind and _brave_ like no group of people his age, so much so that it leaves him in awe that he’s one of them. Sometimes they’ll catch him when he’s thinking that and give him this look like he’s being silly. Like the fact that he’s on the same level as them is a foregone conclusion.

They make him feel full in a way he wouldn’t have thought possible before.

“KF? You okay?” Robin asks, hand on his shoulder.

Robin is, without a doubt, Wally’s favourite person. He’s never met anyone before who was so on his wavelength. Who he could talk to so easily. Who has never, ever, _ever_ made him feel bored.

“I’m great, Rob” he says, any swirling guilt washed away by how grateful he is to have these people in his life. “I’m fucking fantastic.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a lot angstier than I intended tbh.
> 
> Next one's either going to be Canary or Dick and I'm v hyped about both :)


	5. Canary i

Black canary supports young superheroes. Dinah Lance does not.

It’s a tricky balance, but somehow she manages it.

The young heroes need someone to believe in them. They need someone to train them and support them and be kind to them when they fall down. To provide those things is the whole  _ point _ of Black Canary staying in the Mountain.

But privately, when she gets to be Dinah instead of someone pretending she’s so much more, she disapproves. She frowns. She looks at these wonderful children and thinks,  _ you’re going to die before me _ .

It hurts. Looking at them and only being able to see how vulnerable they are. Watching as these kids balance on the knife edge between life and death. She remembers being sixteen and feeling immortal and all she can do is pray that these none of these children feel the same as she did at their age.

She doubts it.

Christ, Conner hasn’t even been alive a  _ year _ yet.

So that’s how it is. Black Canary spends her time telling the kids what amazing members of the Justice League they’re all going to make some day. Dinah Lance spends her time wondering whose corpse she’ll meet first.

All she feels is dread for these kids, until Artemis says something which surprises her.

“I get it, y’know” she says after a movie night Canary had been dragged into only a little against her will. “How close we all are to the edge? I know you think we don’t understand, but I do. I think Robin might as well, but I guess that’s just what living in Gotham does to you.” She pauses “The others will get it too, one day.”

“And what if they don’t live that long?” she asks, because somehow in the warmth and safety of the movie the line between Canary and Dinah had been inexcusably blurred.

“Then we’re fucked.” Artemis sighs. “This is the only option, Canary. This is the only life that’s going to make any of us happy, none of us have the option of a safe path.”

Dinah doesn’t have an answer for that. She knows it’s true.

“You know I love you guys, right?” she says, because she knows it’s true whoever she’s pretending to be.

“Yeah, we know.” Artemis smiles. “We’ll be okay, Canary. We’re holding on to each other too tight for anyone to slip away.”

“Okay.” Dinah says, and maybe the bullet hole she imagines between Artemis’ eyes is a little less vivid than usual. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Dinah so much
> 
> I think she’s the only adult I’m likely to do and that’s just cause of how closely linked she is to the team. Also since she’s one of the few league members with brain cells I liked the idea of her being like ‘I fuckin hate the fact that we literally have child soldiers like that’s a thing we do I can’t BELIEVE this’


	6. M'gann i

M’gann loves Earth. She loves how there are plants everywhere, she loves how tall the buildings are, she loves how she hardly ever has to hide from anyone just because she exists.

She loves Earth just as she hated Mars, the way the dust always got in her eyes and she had to feel so scared all the time. Earth is M’gann’s perfect home and complaining about anything about it feels traitorous.

But it’s just so _loud_ sometimes.

On Mars everyone knew to keep quiet. You never knew who was listening to your head so you toned things down, kept your thoughts gentle so as not to scare the children.

No one on Earth tones their thoughts down.

They’re loud and brash and _screaming_ and M’gann knows how to deal with it. She knows how to keep her brain locked in a steel cage that no one can ever shriek their way through.

She just gets tired of it sometimes, okay?

“Hey, guys? Aren’t we meant to be training right now?” Conner says and _no_ M’gann is _not_ up for and kind of activity right now but then he turns to her and, “You have to do that thing for your Uncle, right?”

M’gann stills.

It’s obviously a lie (M’gann will never understand how Conner kept the whole Lex Luthor thing a secret for so long) and she has no idea why Conner’s offering her this escape route. She’s not about to waste it though.

“Yes! That thing! Yeah I really need to get on that, I’ll see you guys later.” She hurries out the room before anyone can call her or Conner out for the clear deception and heads back to her room so that she can lie down for a while and attempt to let the voices settle.

It’s quieter with everyone in the Mountain training. Their thoughts are quiet, focused. Everything is concentrated into their next move and the single-mindedness calms her.

An hour later Conner knocks on her door, a couple of slices of pizza in hand.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want to eat with people.” he says, handing her both slices.

“Thanks.” she says, still quiet. She feels better now but the tiredness won’t fade until tomorrow, if then.

“Do you-” Conner’s eyes dart around the room and he looks uncertain the way he only ever does when he’s talking about feelings. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“How did you know that I needed to get away?” she asks instead of deciding on an answer.

“I don’t know.” Conner says defensively. “You just looked like how I feel when stuff’s too loud.”

_Hello, Megan!_ It’s dumb of her to forget about his superhearing. Conner probably knows all about what it’s like to feel that the world is screaming at you.

“Could you stay with me?” she asks, because Conner’s thoughts aren’t exactly _quiet_ but they can be nice to be around. They never have the same franticness to them that Wally’s and Robin’s and even Artemis’s do and they never feel as heavy as Kaldur’s, weighted down by the pressure of all their lives.

“Okay.” he says, and he smiles like he usually does when he’s been successful in making a connection with someone that’s softer than what he was made for.

They sit together until the world grows quiet and M’gann feels safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may not be a fan of them dating but their friendship is really *chef's kiss*
> 
> mayyyyy be doing billy next. I've got something written for him but it's kinda clunky so I'll probably put that up once it's been redone a bit.


	7. Billy i

People tell him that what he does with his powers is extraordinary. That his good deeds make him noble. That they make him a hero.

It confuses him.

Do they think that doing the right thing is a choice? Do they think that you can get powers like his and keep enough free will for inaction to stay an option? The Wizard would have forced his heart to beat for another century if the alternative was a champion with the capacity for evil.

Billy understands people being impressed by his powers.  _ He’s _ still impressed by his powers. But when people put him on a pedestal for taking the only course of action available to him? He can’t understand it.

He tells this to the Wizard. He looks pleased at Billy’s words.

“Magic needed a protector who would do their job, so you were created. You hold a place of great honour within magic.” he says, as if this is something Billy should be grateful to hear.

Billy goes to sleep that night in an alley behind Taco Bell and does not feel particularly honoured.

~

Billy thinks a lot about what the Wizard said, about him being made to protect magic. He supposes it makes sense. It must be why he don’t experience morality the same way that other people do. It must be why they’ll look at him with awe on occasion, when all he does is the only thing he can.

It makes sense, and something about that is satisfying, but Billy can’t say he  _ likes _ the new knowledge. It makes him feel even more out of place than before, the idea that he was made with a purpose other than just to exist.

He would like to talk to someone about the situation but he isn’t quite sure who. Maybe Tornado? He was made. But Tornado has a robot brain, and not just that, an  _ adult _ robot brain, so Billy feels they might not be able to relate all that well to each other.

Then he remembers the Team. The whole reason they exist is because they busted Superboy out of a cloning lab so he’ll have to know how to adjust to this whole ‘being made’ thing.

He makes his move the next time he’s on monitor duty with Superman.

“I was wondering how Superboy’s adjusted to life outside Cadmus. Is he doing okay?” Billy asks him. Only Tornado, Canary and Batman are really allowed to talk to the Team so Billy figures a third party is his best bet for some advice.

“I think he’s doing fine.” Superman says and, weird, he doesn’t sound like he cares that much.

“You think?” Billy prods, because he’s kind of in the middle of an existential crisis and some advice would be very helpful right now.

“I’m not his keeper.” Superman replies a little too defensively. He stays prickly for the rest of monitor duty and Billy is left a little disappointed in him.

Maybe a third party isn’t his best bet.

~

When Red Tornado’s out of action and the Team need a new hero to mind them, Batman hasn’t even finished speaking before Billy is volunteering to stay at the Mountain for a while. Already planning to ask the child heros all the questions he’s always wished someone his age could answer.

_ The Mountain’s also a lot nicer than the alley behind Taco Bell _ , he thinks and, yeah, depressingly true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shifted Billy’s timeline so that this takes place before he meets his uncle Dudley.
> 
> I feel like this one was kinda awkward but I like the idea of it so eh.

**Author's Note:**

> Me on tumblr: https://elowenp.tumblr.com/


End file.
